by Debra Webb
How had it come to this?
~*~
Nathan dismounted outside Robert’s barn. He smoothed his palm over Midnight’s neck. Paige was avoiding him. She’d ignored his calls all evening and now she’d taken off bright and early to make sure he didn’t catch her today. Her car was in the drive, and she’d apparently taken a horse.
James looked up when Nathan entered the barn. “Hey, buddy, how’s it going?”
Nathan smiled. “Okay. You’re looking better than the last time I saw you.”
“Feeling better, too,” James said with a hand pressed to his stomach. “That bug about got the best of me.”
“I’m glad you’re back on your feet.” Nathan took his hat off and plowed his fingers through his hair. “Did Paige take a ride?” He tried his level best to sound nonchalant, but even he heard the twinge of emotion in his voice.
“Yep, early this morning.” James peered at his watch. “Should’ve been back by now.”
“Did she say where she planned to go?” A feeling of uneasiness slipped over Nathan.
“Said she planned to ride down to the river, somewhere around Robert’s fishing spot.” James scribbled a note on the feed chart.
“Thanks.” Nathan didn’t waste any time getting back astride Midnight. He headed out across the west pasture in a hard gallop. Paige probably hadn’t ridden in a long time. No telling what kind of trouble she could have gotten herself into. Damn. The woman could give a guy an ulcer.
When he neared the river, Nathan slowed his mount to as easy gait. He pushed his Stetson back and squinted towards the trees in the distance. The appaloosa grazed near a thicket of trees. Nathan sighed with relief. He urged the horse forward, staying at a slow trot. When Midnight neared the other horse, he dismounted and dropped the reins. He gave the spotted mare a friendly pat as he walked past her.
The occasional call of a bird and the trickling of water sounded in the otherwise total silence around him. He scanned the river bank for Paige.
“Looking for someone in particular, Blackrope?”
Nathan spun toward her voice. She sat under the shade of an old oak. He ignored the sense of longing that surged through him at the mere sight of her.
“James was worried. He thought maybe you’d gotten yourself lost,” Nathan told her with feigned indifference. He dropped to the ground at her feet and propped his hat on one knee.
“If James was so worried, why didn’t he come looking for me?” she asked, unconvinced.
“Too busy to trifle with city girls who get themselves lost,” he teased. Nathan couldn’t restrain the grin that surfaced.
Paige drew in a long breath and set her pretty blue eyes on his. Nathan held her gaze and prayed he would have the strength not to do something foolish, like taking her in his arms and kissing her again.
“I guess it’s time to talk, huh?” Paige dropped her gaze to the grass. She twisted several blades between her fingers, tearing tiny pieces from the ground.
“Can I go first?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“When did you stop working for your daddy?”
Paige shot him a baleful look. “Couldn’t we start with something simpler?”
Nathan shook his head.
She sighed and twisted the grass a little more. “It took me about six months to realize that I wasn’t cut out for his kind of law.” She looked anywhere but at Nathan. “I wanted to help real people who needed me for more than a tax write-off.”
Nathan smiled. That was the Paige he used to know. “Are you happy now?”
She smiled. “Yes. I love my job. I work with juveniles a lot and I really enjoy making a difference.”
“I’m sure Elliott was a little disappointed.” Nathan watched her reaction closely. They hadn’t been able to have a reasonable conversation regarding her father in more than a decade. This might very well end what could have otherwise been a nice chat.
“At first he pretended it hadn’t happened,” she began. “Then he tried to coerce me into coming back to work for him. Finally we just stopped talking.” A sheen of tears glazed her eyes, regret tinged her voice.
“I’m sorry, Paige. As much as I despise your daddy, I would have never wanted this.” He took the hand she’d been using to torture the grass. He squeezed and allowed her warmth to flow through him. His chest ached at the pain in her eyes. How could Elliott Weston do this to his own daughter? The man was scum.
“Nathan, I never meant to hurt you,” she said quickly. “When Mother died, I couldn’t turn my back on my father. He needed me so much. Maybe for the first time in my life. I couldn’t walk away and you refused to understand.” Paige shook her head. “You were so angry and I felt sure there was nothing left between us—that you didn’t want me anymore after that.” She fell silent for a while, then visibly steeled herself before she spoke again. “When Nalin died, I realized what a mistake I’d made. I—”
“We don’t have to talk about that,” Nathan cut in. He didn’t want to discuss the night his mother died. That night had damaged his heart beyond repair. He had loved Paige so much, consummating that love had ruined him for anyone else. And then she had walked away like it never happened. Nathan forced back the anger that wanted to rise. He didn’t want to hate Paige anymore and he didn’t want her to hate him, either.
“I waited,” Paige went on despite his protests. “Just like I promised you I would.” Her eyes begged him to understand. “I never wanted anyone else. You were—”
Nathan sprang to his feet and turned his back to her. “I don’t want to talk about this.” Pictures, words and memories tumbled into his mind. “I thought you wanted to go from here, not rehash the past.” Nathan tried to still the quaking he felt, but it came from deep inside and he couldn’t prevent it.
“I need you to understand,” Paige insisted. She got to her feet and moved around to face him.
Too close. He didn’t want her so close. He almost took a step back, but her eyes held him still.
“I can’t bear all this bitterness any longer.”
The wind shifted her soft hair over her shoulders, tempting his fingers. Paige hesitantly touched his arm and he shrugged away her touch. Nathan didn’t want her to touch him. Her touch made him feel things he didn’t want to feel and long for something he couldn’t have.
“Nathan, you don’t understand how much you hurt me—”
“I hurt you?” His anger flared. It consumed him, pushed away every other emotion, even the pain. “You just don’t get it, do you?” He shoved his hands through his hair and tried to calm himself, before he exploded into a thousand, screaming pieces. “You walked away from me,” he ground out. “And never came back. I thought…” He couldn’t say the words.
“Why would I want to come back?” Paige’s voce rose sharply. “You didn’t need me.”
“I didn’t need you?” he asked, amazed that she could say such a thing. He suppressed the shudder that threatened to shake him. “Do you have any idea how—” His breath jammed in his chest. He closed his eyes and concentrated on what he needed to say. He let out a defeated little laugh before finally allowing his gaze to meet hers again. “I even prayed.” He shook his head. “Prayed for a miracle that never came.”
“You should’ve been praying for your own two-timing soul, you arrogant idiot!” she shouted.
The woman was crazy! He hadn’t done a damned thing. She was the one! The one who left. The one who never came back. “What’d you expect, Paige?” He flung his arms heavenward. “Did you think I’d come crawling to Memphis and beg you to have me?” He shook his head and planted his hands firmly on his hips. “Not in this lifetime, Blondie.” He pointed his finger at her. “We made love and you never came back.” His words were flat and bitter.
Paige flattened her palms against his chest and pushed hard, forcing him to take a step backward. “You mule-headed jerk! I tried to comfort you and you took advantage of me.”
“Took advantage of you?” Nath
an huffed an indignant breath. “Nobody twisted your arm. You practically threw yourself at me.”
“And it meant nothing to you!” She shoved at him again, propelling him back another step. “You had your fun. But as soon as I was back in Memphis you married the girlfriend you failed to mention while you were making love to me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He grabbed her wrists and prevented her next shove. She wrestled to free herself, but he held her tighter. “What are you talking about, Paige?”
She glared at him through a sheen of tears. Her lips trembled. Nathan had to restrain himself from covering her lips with his own and soothing them into a sweet oblivion. “Tell me what you’re talking about,” he demanded, more gently this time. He loosened his grasp on her wrists when she stopped fighting him.
“A few weeks later…I…I came back.” She shuddered and tears spilled past her thick lashes. “Robert told me you’d already married someone else.” Paige pulled herself free of his relaxed hold. “My father told me I should have expected it…I shouldn’t have trusted you”
Nathan’s mind whirled. He moved his head from side to side in denial. She couldn’t believe that. Paige drew in a sharp breath, drawing his attention back to her confused eyes. Tears streamed down her cheeks. This just couldn’t be. All these years.
“Paige, I didn’t even meet her until a month after you left. I waited, hoped, prayed even that you would come back. When you didn’t, I lost control and married the first woman who showed interest. I thought I could forget you.”
“But…” Paige shook her head and backed away a step. “You weren’t already engaged when we…?” Her questioning gaze locked on his.
“No,” he answered her unfinished question. The past that should have been flashed before his eyes as he stood there looking at Paige. Nathan felt as if a twister had ripped through him, leaving a gaping hole where his soul used to be. She was all he ever wanted and his stupid pride had taken her from him. She had come for him and he had already made the mistake that would ruin both their lives.
“All this time, I thought you…” Paige’s expression cluttered with confusion.
Nathan’s whole body grieved. His heart dropped into his boots. Pride had kept him from calling her or going to Memphis to get her immediately after she had left. When she didn’t come back, he had sought revenge. He had ruined their lives. He took a tentative step toward her. Her eyes filled with the same pain and regret he felt. Nathan reached out and caressed her cheek. He tried to tell her with his eyes what he couldn’t find the words to say. He slid his arms around her and pulled her close. She fit perfectly against him, as she always had. Her cheek against his chest, his chin against her soft hair. Her warm body soothed the deep, dark ache inside him.
Paige clung to Nathan, cried softly into his shirt. He pressed his lips to her hair. “Shh, don’t cry,” he whispered. “It’s over now. We can…We can still be friends.” At least they could have that. Nathan felt Paige tense in his arms. She tilted her tear-stained face up to his. Her sweet lips entirely too close…too inviting.
“Do you mean that? We can forget the past and try to be friends?”
He smiled. She was so beautiful. If she would still accept his friendship, it was hers. She never had to know the truth—that he would go to his grave loving her. “Yes. I’d like that.”
She smiled then. “I’m so glad, Nathan. There’s so much I need to tell you.”
He pressed her cheek against his chest and squeezed her tight. “Let’s not talk anymore right now. There will be time later.” She nodded against him. He couldn’t deal with anything else right now.
Nathan felt some sense of relief that Paige seemed so happy, but somehow he didn’t feel happy at all.
~*~
Paige fumbled through the dark, trying to find her way down the stairs. The storm had knocked the power out. She shivered. She hated the dark. She wasn’t really afraid. Not really, she reminded herself. It was just the idea of not being able to turn the lights on. She had never slept with a nightlight or anything like that, not even as a child. But she often awoke in the middle of the night and turned the bedside lamp on just to make sure she could send away the darkness if she chose to.
Paige felt her way into the kitchen and opened one drawer at a time, carefully examining and identifying the contents by touch. There had to be a candle or flashlight around here someplace. Lightning flashed, temporarily illuminating the room. A boom of thunder followed a few seconds later. She hated storms, too.
She had gone to bed over an hour ago, but couldn’t sleep. Her mind reeled with all that had happened. She and Nathan were actually going to try to be friends. Paige had been shocked to discover that he hadn’t made love to her while engaged to someone else. If she had only known, things would have been so different. She and Nathan would have been raising Jesse together. But she couldn’t change the past. She prayed with all her heart that when she told Nathan about Jesse it wouldn’t undo the progress they had made today. Just to be sure, she’d give it a few more days to set before she tested their new friendship.
She had been prepared to tell him today, but he had seemed talked out. She supposed it was the best to let this soak in and then take the next step.
Her mind conjured up the memory of Nathan’s arms around her. How on earth could she ever be just his friend? She sighed. She loved to look at him, to hear him speak…to smell his exclusive scent. Just watching him walk sent her heart into an acrobatic act.
Paige frowned. What would she do when he actually fell in love with someone else? Like Celine, she thought with disgust. No matter how she had pretended to hate Nathan, Paige knew deep down inside that she didn’t. But it was too late. Too much time had passed. And then, of course, there was Jesse. When Nathan found out she’d kept his son from him, he really would hate her. She felt certain of that.
Feeling the tremendous weight of her error, Paige sagged against the kitchen cabinet. She had done this to herself. Nathan had been right all along. It was all her fault. She should never have left after that night they spent together or she should have come back sooner. But she’d wanted him to be the one to make the move, to ask her to come back. She closed her eyes against the overwhelming darkness. How she hated not being able to turn the light on.
A knock at the front door made her jump. She calmed her runaway heart, then felt her way to the entry hall. She hadn’t heard a car drive up, which wasn’t surprising, considering the storm raging outside.
Another knock echoed in the hall as she neared the door. Why did anyone bother knocking, she wondered? Nearly everyone in town seemed to have a key. Paige opened the door hesitantly only an inch or so, and then wider. Nathan stood before her, his black hat and long duster dripping water on the porch. He held a kerosene lantern in one hand. A bright flash of lightning lit up the darkness behind him, silhouetting his tall frame.
“Nathan, what are you doing out in this storm?” The dim light from the lantern cast a glow over his features. His dark eyes burned into her soul with a heat that threatened to devour her right where she stood.
“I remembered that you didn’t like the dark, so I brought you a lantern,” he said in that low, sensual voice that sent shivers over her skin.
“Come in.” She held the door open wider. A flame sprang to life inside her as his gaze flickered over her.
“I’ll just leave the lantern,” he offered tentatively.
“No, don’t be silly.” Paige took his free hand and pulled him inside. The feel of his hard, callused palm sent a wave of heat up her arm. “You don’t want to go back out into that storm.”
She took the lantern so he could get out of his wet coat. Nathan hung his hat and coat on the hall tree. He raked his fingers through his damp hair; muscle bunched and flexed beneath his shirt as he moved. Paige tried her best not to notice the way his jeans fit against all that made him male, but it was impossible not to. Her nipples stood at attention, rubbing against her pink nigh
t shirt.
“Come into the parlor and we’ll have a brandy to chase away the chill.” She smiled and then led the way. Surely with the dim light, he couldn’t see the physical response his presence had caused. She set the lantern on the sofa table and gestured for Nathan to have a seat. She poured them each a brandy. Friends would do this.
Paige handed Nathan a snifter and then took a seat next to him, but not too close. She pulled the hem of her night shirt over her thighs as she tucked her feet under her bottom.
“Did you hear from Robert today?” Nathan asked as if that’s what he’d come through the rain and the storm to find out.
“Yes. He and Ginny are having a great time. Vegas may become as annual affair.” Paige laughed softly. “I think they’re going to be really good together.”
“I think so, too,” Nathan agreed before taking a sip of his brandy.
“You haven’t said much about how things are going at your place,” she ventured when he didn’t say anything else.
“We haven’t really done much talking until today, now have we?” He smiled a sexy, heart-stopping kind of smile.
“No, I guess we haven’t. We’ve been too busy trying to take each other’s heads off.” Paige released a sigh and drank down the last of the fiery liquid. It left a trail of warmth as it flowed downward. Where the brandy’s effects left off, Nathan’s began. She wondered if she had any effect on him physically. Probably not. His level of sexual sophistication likely surpassed becoming aroused by the mere sight of a scantily clad female.
She waited for Nathan to speak again, but he didn’t. She supposed that maybe he was waiting for her, but she didn’t know what else to say. She had spoken last. The silence in the room seemed deafening. The rain whipped around the exterior of the house with the same force as her body temperature appeared determined to rise. She felt warm and moist in places that had nothing to do with the climate.
